Joey’s Park, Belmont Serves join forces

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The Friends of Joey’s Park organization is recruiting volunteers for the home stretch of a two-year campaign to replace a dilapidated playground near the Winn Brook Elementary School. A community “barn-raising’’ effort to construct the new play area has been scheduled to begin over the weekend of Sept. 27, and continue Oct. 9 to Oct. 14. The final day will receive a boost from participants in the annual Belmont Serves project, which has included the playground on its list of community service activities for the Columbus Day holiday. The playground, built in 1989 in memory of a local boy who died of cystic fibrosis at age 12, closed briefly in 2011 after a safety review raised concerns, and reopened on a temporary basis only after some play equipment was removed. Now, community members are using funds that they have been raising to renovate the playground. Belmont Serves, which is run by the interfaith Belmont Religious Council, will be headquartered next to the Joey’s Park site, and volunteers can sign up in advance or simply show up at 8 a.m. on Oct. 14. They will also have the option of collecting donations for the local food pantry, or working on conservation and gardening projects. In the meantime, the Friends of Joey’s Park has posted a sign-up schedule on its website offering volunteers a range of choices for times and duties over the nine days set aside for the work. For more information on the community service campaigns, visit www.belmontserves.org, or www.joeyspark.org.